CPJ: Bahraini journalists harassed, banned from travel a week ahead of UPR session

Bahraini prosecutors and security officials should cease harassing journalists and should lift travel bans imposed on two reporters in the past week, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a statement issued Monday, May 1, 2017.

Bahraini prosecutors and security officials should cease harassing journalists and should lift travel bans imposed on two reporters in the past week, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a statement issued Monday, May 1, 2017.

On this level, the CPJ noted that “Bahraini public prosecution prosecutors summoned three journalists, Faisal Hayyat, a video blogger; Jaafar al-Jamri, a writer at the beleaguered Al-Wasat newspaper; and freelance journalist Ahmed Radhi, for questioning, in the week before the U.N. Human Rights Commission conducted its Universal Periodic Review on the kingdom’s human rights record.”

Moreover, the CPJ said that “during Bahrain’s last Universal Periodic Review in 2012, the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) criticized the kingdom’s record on press freedom.”